A paramedic who crashed rushing a patient to hospital was forced to pay €1,300 in legal costs after being hauled to court.

The under-pressure ambulance worker was charged with driving without reasonable care even though nobody was injured in the incident.

However a judge saw sense and threw the case out when it came before his court in Co Monaghan late last year.

The paramedic and her union had pleaded with the National Ambulance Service and the HSE to support her in court but was left to shoulder the costs herself.

Her story is just one of a series of shocking incidents relayed to the Irish Mirror by furious paramedics across the country.

Under pressure...emergency workers

National Ambulance Service Representative Association secretary Tony Gregg revealed that paramedics are under extreme pressure to get to calls faster despite having to travel longer distances between calls.

He explained: “Paramedics are actually being subliminally encouraged to drive at excessive speeds in order to cut down the response time.

“One of the problems we have with that is that quite recently in the north east we had a paramedic who was taken to court by the DPP on charges of driving without due care and attention.

“The paramedic was travelling with a patient in the back on lights and sirens and had a minor collision with another vehicle en route to the hospital.

“Following the incident the paramedic was served with a summons by the DPP and had to appear in Clones court.”

He continued: “When the case came before the court the judge dismissed the charges on the grounds that nobody was injured. Subsequent to that he asked that the paramedic actually would pay €200 to the court poor box.

“Following the submission by the legal team she was handed a bill for €1050 – shouldering the burden of a €1250 bill herself.

“We asked the NAS for legal representation on the day and for support on the day from ambulance management. Neither of these requests were acted upon.

“On the day the only people that turned up in court were the paramedic herself, her family and her NASRA trade union representative myself.”

Mr Gregg explained: “The paramedic is on a take-home pay of €450 – that’s a significant proportion of her monthly pay to be paid out on fines while she is actually doing her duty.”

A number of other paramedics contacted the Irish Mirror in the last number of days after a series of shocking exposes about the crippled HSE ambulance service.

The problems were first brought to light last week after a dying man waited nearly half an hour for an ambulance.

Gardai were forced to bring Wayne McQuillan in an unmarked squad car to hospital after he was knifed at the home of his partner Paula Farrell in Rathmullan, Drogheda, Co Louth in the early hours of New Year’s day.

The popular 30-year-old died in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital a short time later.

A number of frustrated paramedics have contacted the Irish Mirror to say that they are doing everything they can to cover the north east of the country but they simply don’t have the resources or the personnel.

All have asked not to be identified to protect their jobs.

One health worker claimed crews are “overworked constantly”.

He said: “Extended duty is now the norm, missed meal breaks and the extreme pressure to respond to life threatening calls a great distance or time away and this all spills over into your family time and is causing serious mental health issues.

“There is no support from management because they do not know how to manage.

“It’s no wonder the sick leave is so high with the serious workload, crews are having serious health issues with increased reliance on medications such as antidepressants.”

A senior paramedic working in the north east said it is vital that the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) must investigate ambulance service response times and ambulance service management.

He said: “I believe the ambulance service response times will get worse and more lives will be lost if something isn’t done.”